Tourism Impact Research

Longwoods International has completed the 2015 Visitor Report for the Arlington CVB. The anaylsis focused only on the 2015 travel year and the highlights of those findings are below.

Key Findings:

In 2015, Arlington had nearly 14 million visitors

Generated $1.4 billion in visitor spending

The average number of nights spent in Arlington on an overnight trip was 3.2 nights

The average travel party size was 3.2 persons, with the number of children on the trip higher than the national average

Higher than the national average, over half of trips were planned two months or less before the trip.

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IHS Global Insight has recently completed an update to its 2005 City Tourism Impact study for the city of Arlington, TX. The analysis focused on the 2008 through 2010 travel years and the highlights of those findings are below.

Key Findings:

In 2010, visitor spending in Arlington, TX totaled $593 million. This is 8.4% higher than the $547 million spent in the city in 2008. For comparison, total direct tourism output for all of the US declined by 6.4% during that same time. (2*)

If tourism spending within Arlington had followed the national trend, the 6.4% decline from 2008 would have resulted in over $81 million being taken out of the local economy.

Tourism spending supports 10,500 jobs within Arlington, making up 8.8% of all private employment. Tourism supported employment has grown by 9.5% since 2008.

Direct tourism employment in the US declined by 9.4% from 2008 to 2010. If tourism employment had followed the national trend, the 9.4% decline from 2008 would have resulted in a decline of over 1,800 jobs in 2010.

Total private employment in Arlington has declined by 2.1% from 2008 to 2010, losing over 2,500 jobs during this time. Tourism has increased employment by over 900 jobs since 2008.

The economic impact of these expenditures totaled $444 million in 2010. This includes $260 million in direct economic impact, $89 million in indirect economic impact (supplier effect), and $95 million in induced economic impact (income effect). The total economic impact increased 7.8% from 2008.

Traveler spending generated $123 million dollars in Federal, State and Local taxes in 2010, including over $57 million in state and local tax revenue. State and local taxing authorities would need to generate an additional $413 annually from each Arlington household to maintain existing level of services.